


Like Fitting a Square Peg into a Round Hole

by NoisyNoiverns, xMidnightSun



Series: Rise & Reign [7]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-25 10:01:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4956001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoisyNoiverns/pseuds/NoisyNoiverns, https://archiveofourown.org/users/xMidnightSun/pseuds/xMidnightSun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Axilus is the only turian on the Fleet. Turians tend to resolve stress through sex. Shenanigans ensue.</p><p>Recommended but not required reading for "Rise & Reign," occurring during "Mercy."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Forgive Me Father for I Haasinned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're here for the porn and haven't read the rest of _rise & reign_ you need to GO BACK AND READ THE REST FOR CONTEXT YOU FILTHY SINNERS

Axilus grunted as he tore at the training dummy with bare talons, starting to feel the barest hints of overexertion in the seam on his shin plate. He pulled his mandibles tight against his face and ignored it, tuning out everything but the heavy snorts of breath as he exhaled, the resistance of the thick fabric covering the dummy, and the satisfaction as his talons ripped through it. The only way this would feel better would be if the dummy were breathing.

His blood sang under his skin as he ran through the familiar routine he’d been born, bred, and trained to do: reach, claw, pull, kick, claw, tear, rip, repeat. It was an unspoken art form, killing; turian children were taught from a young age never to say as much to other species, who could never understand the beauty, the elegance, the dedicated _love_ that went into the bloodiest of hunts.

Which made it all the more frustrating that he had nothing _to_ hunt. A predator with no prey. As much as his more logical mind told him otherwise, instinct said it was almost shameful.

There were living, breathing things on the _Neema_ , the singing in his blood reminded him, that ancient, primal voice that kept his people alive in the prey-scarce months. They’d be suitable prey.

He very quickly stamped that line of thought back down. _No, no,_ no _. Bad. No hunting sapients_.

Spirits, he needed to try and get a vidcomm connection with Freiya soon.

Now there was a thought. He took a break from destroying the dummy, panting and shaking out his fingers as he considered. Freiya had expressed more than a little interest in comm sex before, and she’d always seemed to be down for helping him out when he needed to vent energy. He tried to focus on that, a more productive use for the boiling in his blood than systematic murder. He’d call Freiya, they’d catch up with what was going on in each other’s lives, he’d lead into his current predicament, and then she’d-

A quiet little cough behind him made him jump nearly a foot in the air with a squawk, and he came back down already spun around and biotics flaring, mandibles out and crest up.

Thie’s eyes were wide as dinner plates, and the only sound he made was a squeak. Oops.

He coughed awkwardly and cooled his biotics, trying to strike a more casual pose. “Oh, uh, I, uh…” He coughed. “Hi, Thie.”

Thie stammered for probably a minute, then cleared his throat. “Did I, uh… scare you?”

Axilus stared at him, then clicked his mandibles against his jaw. “No.”

Thie squirmed a bit. “Sorry…” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s just, uh, I, uh…” He swallowed. “I noticed you’ve been getting, like, _really_ frustrated lately, so I thought, well, maybe we should, uh... you know…”

It took a moment for Axilus to process what Thie was saying, then one mandible rotated in a circle while the other moved down. “Are you suggesting we have sex?”

“No!” Thie sputtered. “I mean, yes, I mean… Keelah…” He hugged his arms around his waist, looking at the ground. “It’s just, I know you turians need to work off the extra energy, and nothing else really seems to be doing it, and I’m the only one here you really know, and, well…”

Axilus frowned slightly. “Uh… That’s a nice offer, Thie, really, but, like… Iunno if you’ve noticed this or not, but I’m a lot bigger than you…”

“So?”

“So, I could very easily hurt you,” he pointed out. “And you’re really soft, compared to me. I had some buddies who had sex with asari, and the asari were hurting from the plates ‘cause they weren’t careful enough.”

“Then be careful,” Thie insisted. “Look, I just… I can handle it, okay? I swear.”

He hesitated, rotating his mandibles slowly. Admittedly, it was a very tempting offer, but he didn’t want to hurt Thie…

He sighed. “Alright,” he said, folding his arms across his chest. “But we let medical know about it, we take it slow, and if you get hurt at any point, we stop, deal?”

Thie let out a slow, shaky breath. “Deal.”

* * *

 

Axilus puffed out a sigh, resting his elbows on his knees. “Thie, dude, you gotta relax.”

“I _am_ relaxed,” Thie protested, despite it being a very obvious lie. Every line of his body was tensed, with hunched shoulders, hands clenched into fists, and legs pulled almost to his chest.

Axilus sighed again, running a hand along his crest. “No, you’re really not.” He shook his head slightly, then reached up to brush Thie’s hair back out of his eyes. “Look, the first time’s always nerve-wracking, okay? Trust me, I know. But the less relaxed you are, the more it’s really, _really_ gonna hurt.”

“Saying it’s gonna hurt doesn’t help!” Thie snapped, folding in tighter on himself and scooting back slightly.

Axilus sighed heavily, shaking his head. They’d been sitting in the clean room for fifteen minutes already, and all they’d managed to do was get out of their armor and peel Thie out of his endosuit. It was almost embarrassing, if you asked him. He’d had threesomes that hadn’t taken as long. “If you’re worried about pain, we don’t have to do penetrative,” he offered, clicking his mandibles a little. “I don’t _need_ to stick my dick in anybody to get off.”

Thie gave him a Look, and he sighed _again_. He was going to be doing that a lot tonight, apparently. “So, you don’t want it to hurt, but you don’t want to do less painful options. You really didn’t think this through, did you?”

Thie hesitated, then shook his head.

“Do you want to take it back? I can just go jack off in a corner.”

Thie shook his head more firmly this time, and Axilus facepalmed. “Spirits, Thie…”

“I can do this,” Thie insisted, despite his body language saying otherwise. “I- I just-”

Axilus held up a hand to quiet him. “Thie,” he said gently, “ _why_ do you want to do this? You know it’s going to hurt, and you don’t want pain, but you’re still trying to go through with it.”

Thie squirmed. “I want to help you,” he said quietly. “I know you like sex, and I want… I want you to be more comfortable on the Fleet.”

Axilus thought, considering. That sounded dangerously like _I like you_ territory, and while he did like Thie- _as a friend, just a friend, you’re a turian and a good turian and not going to disappoint your family by mating a quarian_ , his brain was unnervingly quick to tell him- he didn’t want to _hurt_ him.

He fluttered his mandibles slowly, then sighed and reached up to cup the base of Thie’s skull in his hand, mindful of where his talons were so he wouldn’t nick the sensitive canals in the bone that served as Thie’s ears. “Okay,” he said softly. “But if it starts to hurt too much, let me know, and I’ll stop, okay?”

Thie nodded mutely, and Axilus touched his nasal plates to the top of Thie’s head, brushing his mandibles against his… well, he guessed it wasn’t a frontal plate, since quarians didn’t _have_ plates, but about where it _should_ be, anyway.

Thie sort of… well, the best word Axilus had for what he did was melted. The tension left his shoulders, his legs slowly drifted away from his chest, and his mouth fell open in a little ‘o’.

Axilus grinned and returned to a position that wasn’t touching him so much. “That’s more like it. Here, we’ll start slow and simple.”

He carefully guided Thie’s legs down so he could get closer, wondering if he should be concerned about how pliant Thie had become, then just… stared. For like, a minute. “Uh, okay, you’re gonna have to tell me what to do here,” he said, mandibles quirking down. _Good job, idiot, you forgot aliens have different junk_ , he scolded himself. _What the fuck do we do with_ that?

Thie made a choking sound as he came back down from la-la land. “I, uh, shit, I don’t fucking know, how should I know?” he demanded, starting to turn red. “You’re the one who keeps bragging about how much sex he’s had!”

Axilus flicked one mandible sharply. “Yeah, with _turians_. Unless you’ve got some really awful disease that ate your plates, you’re not a turian.”

He huffed, then tilted his head. _Let’s see…_ The basics had to be the same, right? He wracked his memory, going through what he could remember of both his times with other men and the times he’d been on the receiving end in general.

He settled himself between Thie’s legs and ran an experimental finger up his inner thigh, talon folded inward toward his palm so he wouldn’t be risking tearing open the arteries he could smell just under the delicate skin. Thie shuddered at that, and he took it as a good sign, repeating the motion on the other thigh.

He continued in that thread for a few minutes, exploring Thie’s body to find all the little sensitive points, mandibles rising slightly each time he drew another tiny reaction out of Thie. At one point, he got closer to Thie’s dick than he intended, and Thie _moaned_. Actually moaned. It was more of a reaction than Axilus had been expecting, but it got its own reaction in return, as he felt his plates shifting and just beginning to spread.

That was probably his cue to move on, he figured. He started to move his hand closer to Thie’s crotch, only to jerk away as Thie sat up fast. “Spirits, Thie!” he squawked. “Give a guy some warning, would you?”

Thie’s eyes were wide, his jaw held stiffly. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he muttered. “Just- just wanted to see what you were doing.”

Axilus puffed out a little snort. “You’re such a virgin. Just relax, okay? Lie back and chill. I know what I’m doing. Or, I have an idea, anyway.”

“That’s so reassuring.”

“Just lie down, asshole.”

Thie _harrumph_ ed at him, but settled back down, propping himself up with his elbows so he could see a bit better. Axilus rolled his eyes, but resumed his earlier ministrations, carefully teasing and stroking Thie’s dick and observing it as Thie slowly got hard.

He raised a brow plate. “Okay, just sayin’, if I had the other set of parts, I wouldn’t want this anywhere near my hoonana.”

Thie kicked him with a scowl, hitting the side of his foot against Axilus’ waist. “Shut up.”

Axilus snickered, then returned his attention to Thie’s dick, lazily starting to get his hand around it for better grip.

It had… _ridges_. Well, so did his, but the ridges on his ran the length of his dick, and had little notches at regular intervals. The ones on Thie’s encircled it, with even spacing between the four of them. And the head was blunter, more round, where Axilus’ was more tapered, designed to slide in comfortably between plates that might not be fully spread.

Speaking of which.

As he continued to slowly pump his hand up and down, he moved his free hand down to his own crotch, running his thumb-talon along the seam. Spirits, it had been a while. His plates spread easily enough that it would have been embarrassing if Thie had been another turian- hell, he could already hear Freiya teasing him in the back of his head, comments about how well she’d trained him and…

He shook his head, chasing those thoughts away. _Thie, focus on Thie_ , he scolded himself. _Freiya doesn’t matter right now_.

He glanced up to see how Thie was doing, and flared his mandibles in a mix of surprise and amusement. Thie had given up on propping himself up, and was just sort of lying there, shuddering slightly with each motion of Axilus’ hand and making various little noises that instinct translated for him as _pleased, delighted, ecstatic_.

Well, that was _definitely_ a good sign.

Curious, he leaned in a little closer, idly stroking both himself and Thie in time. Freiya had done something with her tongue once that he distinctly remembered having driven him wild, and he wondered if it would have a similar effect on Thie.

Turian tongues were long and thin, meant for getting into every nook and cranny of a bone to get the sweet, sweet marrow inside. Which, of course, meant that since their mouths were full of spiky bone protrusions of death, their tongues were also quite useful for oral.

No sooner had he opened his mouth, however, than Thie had jumped and kicked at him. “Don’t you dare!” he yelped, skittering back. “No teeth!”

He rolled his eyes and flicked his mandibles hard. “Relax, Thie, I’m not putting your dick in my mouth. That’s asking for trouble, especially with how jumpy you are.”

Thie scowled. “You have more teeth than ever need to be down there.”

“Too late, it’s kinda hard not to be.” He snorted, then moved a knee so it was pinning Thie’s leg down. “And stop kicking me. I prefer my kidneys not bruised.”

Thie just grimaced, and he sighed. “Look, just trust me, okay? I won’t hurt you.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“Hey, you know how careful turians have to be if the one receiving is a crestless? There’s a reason they’re usually the ones running the show on the field, they’re, like, ninety times more vicious than cresteds. You hurt them during sex, they hurt you right the fuck back.”

“That is significantly less encouraging than you seem to think it is.”

Axilus huffed, locking eyes with Thie for a moment, then quickly ducked his head and removed his hand from Thie’s cock, replacing it with his tongue and giving one long lick from base to tip.

Yuck. He definitely preferred doing this to other turians; self-lubrication went a long way to improving taste.

Thie jolted, pulling his legs back up and in, and Axilus snorted. “What, did it hurt?”

“No, it felt weird!” Thie complained.

Another snort. “Well, _duh_. I just licked your junk, dude.” He ran his tongue over his teeth, trying to scrape the taste off. “For the record, turians taste better.”

Thie gave him a bewildered look. “What the fuck?”

“There is this thing called ‘oral’. Maybe you’ve heard of it.”

“No!”

Axilus flared his mandibles. “Seriously?”

“Sex ed on the Fleet is really, _really_ shitty, okay? We live in suits, we don’t really have the luxury of having sex for fun, and have you ever seen our teeth?”

He raised a brow plate. “They’re kind of hidden in those helmets most of the time.”

Thie sighed, then peeled his lips back and parted his jaws in a somewhat hideous grimace, showing rows of flat, pointed, triangular teeth. Axilus flinched back, feeling his plates start to close back up. “Okay, yeah, keep those away from me, unless you got the tongue to compensate.”

“That’s what I thought.” Thie closed his mouth, now just scowling. Again. As usual, really, if Axilus was honest with himself.

He huffed. “At least turians have the tongues to make up for it.”

Thie raised one of the fuzzy lines- _eyebrows_ , they were called eyebrows- and folded his arms across his chest. “So your females let you near their junk with those mouths?”

“If they’re into it, yes. I did this thing to Freiya once she really liked…” He trailed off, then ducked his head again, his tongue doing a corkscrew sort of motion around Thie’s length this time. Above him, Thie moaned again, a shuddery sort of noise that had Axilus’ plates back as loose as they had been earlier.

Spirits, he was twitchy. At least once every couple seconds, Thie’s legs would spasm, or his arms, or his abs. And spirits, his _cock_. It was even twitchier than the rest of him, jumping practically in time with Thie’s heartbeat. And it probably was, come to think of it.

Grinning, Axilus put his tongue to work, running the side up and down Thie’s dick, laving at the head, and pressing against those weird ridges to get Thie to do the shuddery moan again. Now _there_ was a sound he could get used to. It took Freiya a lot more than some simple licking to do that, but Thie was making it over practically nothing.

The hand stroking his own dick was starting to get tired, and a little voice in the back of his head reminded him that he probably should at least _try_ not to get his fluids on everything, so he reluctantly leaned back, sitting on his heels and angling his hips to try and prevent too much from dripping down to the bed.

After a moment of recovery, Thie sat up slightly, giving him a look. “Why- why’d you stop?” he panted, very much failing to hide the heaving of his chest.

“Just give me a minute, okay?” he asked, doing his best to ignore the aching in his heels. His ankles were _not_ meant to extend this far. After a moment, he moved his legs so he was sitting cross-legged. There. Much better.

He eyed Thie, still flushed and panting, then flicked a mandible. “Still want to try penetrative?” he asked cautiously. “I mean, I could just do that again until you get off, it’s no big-”

“No, no, I’m good,” Thie said, sitting up again. The look in his eyes very clearly spelled fear to Axilus, but still he insisted, “I want to do this.”

Axilus hesitated, then sighed and offered him a hand. “Then come here.”

Thie gave him an odd look, but accepted the hand and allowed Axilus to pull him upright and over to him. “Trust me,” Axilus told him, “with size differences, sitting up is more comfortable.”

He helped Thie move so he was sitting on Axilus’ knees, legs wrapped loosely around his waist. He was just starting to try and figure out what to do next when Thie spoke.

“Well,” he said, “that’s bigger than anticipated.”

Axilus felt his neck heat up. “Yeah, I… I’ve heard that one before. Kinda big for a turian, to be honest. Can you stop staring?”

“Uh… no.” He paused, then said, “Ax, why is your dick, like…” Somehow, he managed to get even redder. “Shiny?”

Axilus blinked, then looked down, then back up at Thie, mandibles flared and neck heating up even more. “Oh, uh… Turians self-lubricate. Both males and females. Makes it more comfortable for both parties. ’s’why you hear us talk about smelling like each other. Stuff gets all over your partner.” His neck was on fire at this point. “And why I said turians taste better. Masks the taste of dick.”

Thie blinked, then tilted his head slightly. “So then what does yours taste like?”

“Nuh-uh. Not with those teeth, you’re not.”

“Hey, I was just _asking._ ”

“Don’t give me that, you wanted to try it.”

Thie just scowled at him, then huffed a little. “Whatever. So, uh… How are we supposed to, y’know…” He swallowed. “Get that in me?”

Axilus’ mandibles dropped. “Uh…” Shit. “Very carefully.”

“You didn’t think this far ahead, did you?”

“To be honest, I was kind of hoping I’d talk you out of it before now.”

Thie groaned. “Sp- _Keelah_ , you’re an idiot.”

“Were you about to say spirits?”

“ _No._ ”

Axilus snorted in disbelief, and Thie scowled and kneed him hard in the side. Axilus winced, then headbutted him as gently as he could without reducing the intended effect. “Dude, not when you’re sitting in my lap, y’know?”

“Whatever. Just… just get this over with, okay?”

Axilus looked him up and down, noting the tension that had found its way back into his stance. Not good. “Thie, listen,” he said, hoping he sounded gentle. “I know you’re scared, okay? I promise, I won’t hurt you. Not on purpose, anyway.”

Thie gnawed at his lip. “You’ve done this before, right?”

“Yeah. Loads of times.”

“How bad does it hurt?”

Axilus paused, meeting Thie’s eyes and taking a moment to read the apprehension scrawled there. He took a deep breath, then brushed his nasal plates against Thie’s forehead. “Bad. But if we’re careful, and take it slow, it won’t be too awful.”

Thie still looked nervous, so Axilus gently fluttered his mandibles against his temples. “If it starts hurting too much, let me know, and I’ll stop, okay?”

Thie gnawed at his lip, then nodded, and Axilus moved his hands so he was holding Thie around the waist. Thie raised an eyebrow at this, and Axilus sighed. “In case your knees give out, dumbass. Unless you _want_ your obituary to read like a _Fornax_ headline.”

Thie looked stricken, and Axilus snorted. “Yeah, didn’t think so.” He shifted his grip slightly, then moved one hand to look at the ridge he’d found just above Thie’s hip. “Uh… What’s this?” There were similar ridge things on the sides of Thie’s skull that let him hear, he knew. But why would he need those on his abdomen?

“Huh?” Thie looked down, twisting slightly to see what Axilus did. “Oh. They’re, uh… Ventilation, I guess? I didn’t really pay attention in biology, but they’re s’posed to help us keep cool. Something about blood vessels under the surface.”

Axilus’ hands very quickly found new homes at the bottom of Thie’s ribcage, where there were significantly fewer blood-rich canals to risk cutting open. Thie muttered a thanks, and he cocked a mandible in a grin.

Then he very carefully guided Thie so he was hovering over his dick, giving himself a couple quick strokes to stay hard. Thie, now chewing on his lower lip like a _telal_ going after bugs in the cliffs (very fast, and with little consideration for personal injury), put his arms over Axilus’ shoulders, loosely wrapping them around his cowl.

Axilus touched his frontal plate to Thie’s forehead, reaching out with his mandibles to gently rub against his cheeks, hoping to get that reaction where Thie turned to mush. This would be easier if Thie were relaxed.

It seemed to work, and Thie let out a long, breathy sigh. With a little smile, Axilus reached down to cautiously search for Thie’s entrance, just barely brushing his talon-tip along so he wouldn’t accidentally press too hard and pierce the skin. It was further back than it would be on a turian, but not by much, thank the Spirits. He helped Thie move over so the head of his dick was brushing against Thie’s entrance, gaining some more shuddery deep breaths for his efforts.

After a moment’s thought, he ran a couple fingers along his dick, collecting some of his fluids and carefully moving them up to the area immediately above. This earned him a weird look from Thie, and he flared his mandibles in response. “So you’re less likely to tear,” he said in answer to the unspoken question. Demienn had done it to him a couple times before, and he had in turn tried it with Freiya, and it had worked out for them, so it would _probably_ work for Thie, right?

Thie considered this, then nodded slightly. “Fine.” His voice was shaky, and he was trembling under Axilus’ talons. But still, he took a deep breath, tightened his grip around Axilus’ cowl, and slowly lowered himself down.

Immediately, he started hissing in pain, but Axilus barely heard. His blood was singing in his head again, but now it was significantly less about _killing_ and a lot more about _mating_. It took all his willpower not to buck his hips and bury himself in Thie, scolding himself in his head that _no_ , that would be _really, really bad_ , and he was _not_ going to hurt Thie. He’d made a promise, after all.

Thie had barely managed to get the head in when he stopped, panting and shaking and shuddering and clinging to Axilus with all he had. He’d put his head down on Axilus’ shoulder at some point, and was currently gulping down air. Alarmed, Axilus nudged him with his head. “Thie? Thie, are you okay?”

“Fine,” Thie hissed through gritted teeth. “Just- just give me a bit, okay? I can do it, just- just wait.”

Axilus let out a low keen, but patted Thie’s back in as awkward an approximation of a hug as he could manage in their current position. “It’s okay, dude, take as long as you need.”

‘As long as he needed’ turned out to be a while, and Axilus had never been very patient. But he forced himself to wait, reminding himself that if he rushed it, Thie would get hurt, and _bad_.

By the time Thie finally, _finally_ started trying to move again, Axilus had started considering offering to stop already. Thie’d barely been reacting to him, just quiet little moans every now and then. He’d taken to idly stroking Thie’s dick again, if only for something to keep his hands busy. Then, without warning, Thie had sucked in another shaky breath, then started back down, going agonizingly slowly enough to draw a little whine from Axilus.

He’d gotten maybe half a talon-length further down when he had to stop again.

Spirits, this was going to take ages.

Even as the thought flitted across his mind, Axilus was already rebuking it. He _wasn’t_ going to hurt Thie, no matter _how_ long it took to do things right.

They continued in that vein for a while: they’d wait a while, then Thie would make another go, then another long pause, and so on, until Thie had taken in maybe three-fourths of Axilus’ dick and was shaking so hard Axilus thought he might actually shake himself right off, head pressed against the relatively soft skin on Axilus’ neck. Axilus thought he might be crying from the noises he was making, but his skin didn’t feel wet, so he wasn’t sure. “Thie, Thie,” he soothed, running a hand up and down Thie’s back, “it’s okay, it’s okay. You don’t have to keep going, just… just stop there, okay? You don’t need to do more.”

Thie made a noise of protest, having lost the ability to make actual words maybe half a talon-length ago, and Axilus hummed. “Shh, I know. It’s okay. It’s your first time, you’re doing really well for a virgin, this is good enough, it’s okay.”

Thie whined, and he gently brushed his mandibles against his temple, making as soothing of sounds as he could. Gradually, Thie calmed, and Axilus ran a finger up and down his dick, considering.

He couldn’t really thrust, that much was obvious. Thie was barely holding it together as it was. Spirits, he was tight, very tight, tighter than he could remember Freiya or Demienn or just about any other partners being. It was almost enough to make him see stars, but he forced himself to stay coherent- one of them had to, and Thie certainly wasn’t going to do it. That option had gone out the window several minutes ago.

Without really thinking about it that much, he started slowly rocking his hips, feeling his dick move just a smidge inside Thie. Thie himself let out a sharp, jerky gasp, fingers curling against the back of Axilus’ cowl.

Axilus blinked. Well, that was unexpected. Cautiously, he added a slight roll, and Thie about called it quits on the solid state of matter then and there. He actually relaxed enough to suddenly slide down another centimeter or so, prompting Axilus to hurriedly adjust his grip on his sides to make sure he wasn’t about to hurt himself.

That probably wasn’t normal.

Granted, nothing _about_ this situation was normal, but he was maybe 99.2% certain that quarians were not supposed to turn into jelly during sex.

Eh, he’d worry about it later.

For now, he rubbed his head against Thie’s, making soft noises to him as he slowly continued rocking back and forth inside him.

* * *

 

Xala was just starting on pull-ups when Han entered the weight room, duffel bag stuffed with armor slung over one shoulder. “Hello, gorgeous,” Han said cheekily, sliding an arm around Xala’s hips and pulling him in to plant a kiss on his abs. “Oh, and you too, Xala,” he added with a grin up at him.

Xala rolled his eyes and wrapped his legs around Han’s torso. “I always knew you were using me for my body,” he teased, moving his hands on the pull-up bar so he could lean down and touch their foreheads together.

Han grinned and stretched up to give him a kiss. “Oh, you know. Abs, face, kisses, sex, companionship, way you always know exactly what to say and never give me shit when I’m having a hard time with the whole ‘being disabled’ thing… Y’know, I’m wondering if maybe I married you because I fell in love with you.”

“Can’t be.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Must’ve been your ass.”

Xala smiled and removed his legs from his husband’s torso, giving him a little kick as he moved to set his gear down. “I would’ve thought it was my pecs.”

“Those, too. And your legs. Damn fine legs you got there.”

“You know it.” He shook a foot at him, remembered that was a bad plan as the ankle weight on it banged against his tarsals, and went back to doing pull-ups as Han started gathering weights to put on a barbell. “So, did you hear what the idiots did?”

“Witnesses lied, I wasn’t involved.”

“No, you’re right, actually.” He paused, both for dramatic effect and to finish a couple more pull-ups, then said, “It was your biotics.”

There was a resounding clang as the weight Han had been picking up fell to the floor, followed by a yelped, “ _Keelah!_ ” as Han rushed to pick it up and make sure it hadn’t left a dent. Once he’d assured himself they wouldn’t need to fudge floor repairs, he went back to putting the weights all together, continuing as if nothing had happened, “You’re serious? What happened?”

“Well,” Xala said, smiling internally, “I heard from medical that they decided to try having sex.”

Han went stock-still, staying silent for a long time. Then, just as Xala was debating whether or not to prompt him, he started laughing, a delighted, wheezing sort of cackle that sounded like he was absolutely ecstatic to the point of forgetting how to breathe properly. “You’re shitting me! You can’t be serious?”

“I’m completely serious, Han,” he said, though now he was starting to grin on the outside, too. Han’s laughter had that effect on him, he’d noticed over the years. “I heard it from the doctors myself. Seems Haasn offered to help Madelivio work off some stress through sex.”

By now Han had given up on standing and was sprawled on the floor, giggling manically to himself. “Keelah, that’s the best thing I’ve heard in years…” His laughter cut off abruptly, and he looked up at Xala with a slight frown. “Wait, you said medical? Are they hurt?”

“Mm. Haasn tore a little. Just a little, though, not nearly as bad as they were expecting. Nothing they can’t fix in a matter of hours.”

Han winced in sympathy. “Did they say if he was a virgin or not?”

“Mhm. His first time ever.”

“And he picked a turian…” Han shook his head. “At least I had the sense to work my way up to turians.”

“Oh, Han, that’s not even the best part.” The grin came on its own this time.

“Oh, no.”

His cheeks hurt from smiling. “So, you know how turians self-lubricate?”

“Yeah. What about it?”

“Turns out part of it’s an aphrodisiac, and we don’t have the biology to process it the way it should be. Haasn’s high as balls, and they haven’t a clue as to when he’ll be coming back down.”

Gerrel blinked slowly, eyes wide. Then he whistled. “Well, that explains a few things I’d been wondering about on Pilgrimage.” He stared at the floor for a second, then shrugged and started getting back to his feet. “Rip.”

“Almost literally.”

“Xala, don’t you ever, ever say that to me, ever again.” He shuddered, then started in on his usual routine of pre-lifting stretches. “You been to see them yet?”

“Ancestors, no. And I don’t want to.”

“Oh, come on, you _shoda_.”

“ _No_ , Han.”

Han snorted and muttered something about Xala’s squeamishness, and Xala huffed. “You would be, too, if you’d talked to medical.”

“Exactly why we should drop by once we’re done here.”

“You’re going to be the death of me, I swear.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [take me to church plays loudly in the foreground]
> 
> There's no specific time this chapter occurs beyond "at some point before chapter 7 of Mercy," for the record.


	2. The Explicit Stuff Will Return After These Messages

Axilus grumbled as he cleaned off his plates, listening to Freiya snicker. “This is where it comes in handy to not have a dick,” she crowed, wiping her own fluids off her hand.

“Yeah, yeah, rub it in,” he huffed, mandibles twitching.

Her voice dropped to a low, sultry tone with mocking subvocals. “Mm, baby, you know I’d love to, but you’re just so much prettier like this.”

Axilus’ neck flashed with heat, and she cackled, putting down her towel and reaching off-screen. “Relax, Axi, it’s all good. You’re getting _something_ , at least. I’d help you, heh, keep the mess contained if I could, but for now you’ll have to settle for comm sex.”

One mandible twitched erratically. “Well, actually…”

Freiya froze, hands now back in the shot and poised to rub in hand sanitizer. “You’re shitting me. On the Fleet?”

He nodded, and her mandibles flicked out hard. “Can’t be another turian. So…” She sucked in a breath, subvocals trilling with delight, and she asked, “Is it Haasn? Are you finally a thing?”

“What do you mean, _finally?_ ”

“Dude, it’s been obvious since, like, I _met_ him. He _so_ digs you.”

He let out a distressed trill. “Spirits, Freiya, it’s nothing like that, he offered to help with stress and stuff.”

“Uh-huh. Right.”

He huffed, trying to ignore how warm his neck felt. “Well, what about you? You were pretty eager to touch yourself for me.”

Her neck gained a blue tinge, and she huffed. “Spirits... Well, for one thing, you know how really boring it is to bang with people you aren’t best friends with? Nobody wants to try anything fun. I haven’t played since that last leave we were on Palaven together.”

“Oh no, poor you, you don’t get to try any of your weird kinks.”

“You didn’t think they were so weird when I tried them on _you_. I distinctly remember you telling me how bad you wanted me to do you like that.”

His mandibles fluttered anxiously. “Shut up.”

She grinned. “Aw, is the big baby embarrassed to admit he likes it when-”

“I said, shut up!” he barked, throwing in a whine for good measure.

She sighed and settled back. “Fine, fine.” She watched him clean himself off for a bit, then asked, “So how was he?”

He paused. “Thie?”

“No, that elcor policeman on the Citadel. Of course Thie!”

He flicked his mandibles at her in annoyance, then rubbed the back of his head. “Well… I didn’t get all the way in, for one.”

“Unsurprising. Remember how long it took me to take you?”

“Yeah, sure, but like, he was a virgin, but he took _two talon-lengths_.”

She raised a brow plate at him. “Uh-huh. Sure.”

“No, serious! But, like…” He squirmed a bit. “He kinda… tore a bit. Not bad, but spirits, I felt _awful_ , he was bleeding and I think I might’ve nicked something on his side cause it was bleeding some too and apparently the fluids are… what’s the word… aphrodisiacs? And quarians can’t process them right cause of different biology so he was, like, _really_ high, and he’s still really out of it in the medbay, and spirits…”

Freiya listened patiently, then sighed. “Ax, did you pay _any_ attention in sex ed during school?”

“One, not really. Two, ‘how to have sex with a quarian’ wasn’t exactly covered in the first place.”

“While I’ll give you that, it’s not _that_ much work to figure it out.” She sighed again, flaring her mandibles out. “Look, do you have anything you can use to prepare him, so he’s not just trying to take a big, thick turian cock from the word go?”

Axilus felt his neck heat up, and Freiya groaned. “Spirits, you idiots… Look, I just got a new set of vibes. Totally unused. I’ll send you some, alright? Couple for him, different sizes, so he can work his way up to you, and one for you, ’cause I know you like it.”

“Spirits, Freiya, you can’t be serious.”

“Sure am, you big baby. Just be careful, and it should work out. And be patient, too. Don’t just expect him to take all of you at once just ’cause he stretched beforehand.”

“You know, of all the people I expected to be giving me advice for doing a quarian, my girlfriend was exactly _nowhere_ on the list.”

“How do you think I feel? I’m telling _my_ boyfriend how to have sex with _his_ boyfriend.”

His neck set itself on fire again. “Spirits, Freiya, it’s not like that!”

“Axilus. You are having sex with him. You have kissed him in the most cheesily romantic way ever, multiple times. You went to the _Migrant fucking Fleet_ for him. He’s your boyfriend.”

He squirmed. “We’re _friends_ ,” he insisted.

“Axi, honey, is this because you have commitment issues?”

“I _don’t_ have commitment issues.”

“Axilus, Axi, Ax. Literally the whole squad and both our families knew we’re a definite Thing, and you still got squirmy whenever somebody jokingly asked when the wedding was. You have commitment issues.”

He squirmed even more. “That’s just ’cause we’re, like, not even twenty yet-”

“Speak for yourself. My birthday’s next week, and you’d better not forget it.”

“Whatever, we’re barely adults. We’re too young for marriage and kids and all that.”

“So I should expect _vincorit_ in a decade or so. Good to know, thanks for the heads-up.”

“Freiya!”

“What? I’m just saying.”

“Spirits, I want to fuck that smug grin off your face.”

“Much as I’d love that, there’s several relay jumps between us, and your plates are still covered in proof you wouldn’t do that unless I was directing you every step of the way.”

He swallowed, feeling his plates spread slightly, and she rolled her eyes. “You’re so easy. I can’t believe it took me seven times to figure out you liked it when I told you what to do.”

“Shut up.”

She flicked her mandibles hard, then hummed. “Besides, you have a boyfriend to take care of. You should be looking after him before you put any thought into your girlfriend half a galaxy away.”

“I told you, he’s _not_ my boyfriend.”

“Whatever lets you sleep at night, _apricitas_. Anyway, I’ll try to have the vibes in the mail by tomorrow night. Should be there some time next week. And if you don’t use them, next time I see you, you won’t be able to fuck _anybody_.”

His mandibles clacked tight against his face. “What? _Freiya!”_

“Don’t you give me that, Axilus. I don’t want you hurting him just ’cause you’re horribly awkward.”

“Why do you do these things to me…”

“Because I feed off your embarrassment. I have to go, same time tomorrow?”

“Yeah. I’ll let you know if I can’t. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

* * *

 

“Madelivio, with a girlfriend?” Han’Seyya scoffed. “I don’t believe that.”

“It’s true!” Axilus insisted, trying very hard not to lean in closer to Seyya so Thie wouldn’t fall from where he was leaning against him. “We talked last night.”

“Nah, you’re too ugly for a girlfriend,” Lila’Yaana piped up. “Maybe she put a bag over his head before she had sex with him.”

“More like he’s too big,” Seyya snorted.

Axilus flared his mandibles. “Oh, like you’re one to talk!”

“Yeah, Han,” Lila said, punching Seyya’s shoulder.

Seyya gave her a vaguely offended look. “I’ll have you know I’m perfectly proportionate.”

“That’s not what my cousin said,” Lila singsonged, before Seyya almost shoved her out of her chair.

There was a small clatter as a chair was yanked over and spun around, then Gerrel plopped down in it, leaning on the back and letting his elbows dangle over the edge. “What’s this about Seyya compensating?”

Seyya groaned and put his face in his hands. “Sir.”

Gerrel snickered as Son’Todor took a seat next to him. “So what’s the gossip circle up to today?”

“This isn’t a gossip circle, sir,” Lila protested. “And don’t you have other things to do?”

Gerrel tugged his helmet off and raised a brow at her, then pulled his omni-tool off his wrist, put it in his helmet, and tossed the helmet over to where the others had left theirs. “No. What’re we talking about?”

“Whether or not Madelivio has a girlfriend,” Reegar offered, startling Axilus slightly. Up until then, he’d been content to watch the rest of the group argue, so Axilus had almost forgotten he was there.

Gerrel’s other eyebrow joined the first. “Huh. Girlfriend _and_ a boyfriend. Nice. Wish I could manage that. Except replace ‘girlfriend’ with ‘boyfriend’ and ‘boyfriend’ with ‘another boyfriend.’”

Axilus felt his neck heat up. “It’s not like that! He’s not my boyfriend!”

“Madelivio, I hate to break this to you, but you’ve had sex with him. You’re at the very least more than friends. Also, I heard reports that you kissed him in the medbay.”

Axilus yelped. “I did not!”

“Uh-huh. Right.”

Axilus grumbled. “It’s different for turians.”

Gerrel snorted. “Trust me, kid, I know plenty about aliens’ sex customs. Some I’d prefer to forget, but that’s ADHD for you.”

Axilus raised a brow plate. “Explain how.”

The look on Gerrel’s face was the encyclopedia entry for “shit-eating grin.” “Okay, we’re all adults here, right?”

There was a chorus of affirmative noises, and Gerrel continued, “Right, as you all know, my Pilgrimage was one _really_ weird adventure after the other.” He stretched his arms out in front of him, then let them dangle loosely over the back of the chair as he said, “Now, before I get into too much detail, you’re all hereby sworn to secrecy. Can’t breathe a word of what I’m about to tell you to anybody, but especially not Commander Xala or Admiral Raan. Keelah, _especially_ especially not Raan. Got it?”

Another chorus of affirmatives, and he looked around the circle, pointing a finger at them. “If any of you are squeamish, this is your first, last, and only warning. Leave now, or forever hold your peace.”

When nobody moved, his trademark grin just spread wider. “That’s the spirit. Madelivio, how’s Haasn doing?”

Axilus blinked and looked down at Thie, then gave him a little nudge. His only reaction was a little grunt and a sudden blurt of “Cactuses ate my gym shorts?” before going back to his previous state of Definitely Out of It™.

Axilus blinked slowly. “What’s a cactus? And why would you have specific shorts for gym?”

The rest of the quarians frowned and looked at each other. “What are shorts?” Reegar asked.

Axilus shook his head slightly and brushed his mandibles against Thie’s helmet. “He’s out for a loop.”

Gerrel snickered. “Excellent. See, Xala won’t come near him while he’s like that, ’cause he’s weirdly squeamish like that, so as long as he’s still zonked out, we’re in the clear.”

Something occurred to Todor at that, and he glanced at Gerrel. “Wait, is this that one story Xala never lets you tell?”

“Yes, be quiet. Gather ’round, it’s Han’Gerrel storytime.”

Todor muttered something about _all_ the time being “Han’Gerrel storytime” if you hung around long enough, and Gerrel kicked him before starting in. “Now see, when I was on Pilgrimage, I ended up doing casual sex work. Not my main source of income, mind you, just something I did on the side for extra money, but it was decent enough work. Turns out there’s lots of people willing to pay big for sex with a quarian. Good pay, and the turians I was staying with made sure nobody too unsavory got close.”

“You were staying with turians?” Seyya asked.

“Yes, but that’s not important. As I was saying, I did a bit of sex work on the side, and let me tell you, you don’t know _shit_ about sex until you’re doing it on a regular basis with a whole bunch of different species. Been with basically every species except hanar, volus, salarians, and humans, and humans were just ’cause they weren’t around yet.”

“Sir, what about el-”

“Don’t finish that sentence, Yaana,” he said without missing a beat, still grinning.

Axilus raised a brow plate. “Even krogan?”

Gerrel’s grin turned wicked, sharp teeth glinting. “ _That’s_ the part of the story Xala hates.”

He glanced around the room, then motioned for everyone to gather in a little bit closer. “Now, we were on Ilium, just trying to get by, maybe get a ticket to somewhere slavery isn’t given a prettier term and called legal. Rael did mechanic work, but since I wasn’t terribly good at that, I ran with some mercs and did the odd sex job on the side. Stripped, too, but that’s a different story. This one night, Rael was working late, and I was taking a couple requests, mostly out of boredom.”

Thie shifted slightly, and Axilus absently ran a hand down his back, thrumming a quiet subvocal to calm him. Meanwhile, Gerrel set the scene: a krogan had expressed interest, and out of a combination of curiosity and Rael being roughly 89% of his impulse control, Gerrel had accepted.

“Now, this guy was about the same size as any other krogan you’d run into on Ilium or anywhere else.” He stood up and raised his hand over his head, standing on his tip-toes to properly gesture. “About this tall, and maybe half that wide.” He sat back down and shrugged. “Nothing really special. He’d already paid, I always made sure to get the money before removing so much as an armband, so I wasn’t too worried. No way in hell was I doing anal, didn’t even have to see him naked to know that much, so he agreed to oral.”

Axilus swore the other quarians’ eyes were as wide as his mother’s best dinner plates, the ones that could hold half a _cornin_ and still have room for a ring of fruit around the edge. “You went down on a _krogan?”_ Reegar asked, sounding like he wasn’t sure whether to be disgusted or in awe.

Gerrel snickered. “Not quite. If you’d let me finish.”

Reegar nodded, and Gerrel continued, “Now, he didn’t look it, but he was awful big for a krogan- I looked it up, he was definitely bigger than the average. Both longer and thicker than your run-of-the-mill Tuchanka mutt. Just about scared the life right out of me. But he’d paid, and it’s not exactly healthy for a sex worker to run without doing what they’re paid for.”

“Is it true they have two dicks?” Lila asked, brow furrowed like this was something that had kept her up at night thinking about it.

“Yes, but see, they both stay in a pouch, and only one gets hard at a time. Otherwise they’d have a little trouble keeping it up. _As I was saying-”_

Just then two spidery hands closed around Gerrel’s throat and pulled upward slightly, pressing on his jaw and forcing it to close. Gerrel made a strangled _hrk!_ sound, and his eyes shifted over to look at Todor. “Sonny Boy,” he said with obvious difficulty, “why didn’t you warn me my husband was standing right behind me?”

Todor put a hand up so Gerrel couldn’t see his eyes. “Because he scares me.”

How Xala had gotten there so stealthily was beyond Axilus. His expression was detached as always, but his eyes held a distinctly displeased look. “Han,” he said icily, “we’ve discussed this.”

Gerrel shook his head violently, forcing Xala to let go. “I thought you were busy,” Gerrel complained, scowling something fierce.

“I was. Then I heard tell you were telling the krogan story.”

“What do you have against this story, anyway!? You weren’t even _there!”_

Xala folded his arms neatly behind his back. “Doesn’t mean I enjoy being reminded of what happened, Han.”

“What, the part where I got paid for sex by a krogan? Or the part where I almost _died?”_

Xala flinched, and the rest of the group made a chorus of various surprised noises. “You’re my husband whom I love very much. You almost weren’t.”

Gerrel glowered at him a moment, then heaved a sigh. “Sorry, Xala. But you know, now I _have_ to finish, they just heard the ending.”

Xala groaned. “Make it quick.”

Gerrel grinned, then turned back to the group. “So, long story short, the next day’s papers almost included an obit that read, ‘Han’Gerrel nar _Tonbay_ : Stupid fucking teenager choked to death on krogan cock, pun not intended.’”

Seyya made a choking noise, and Gerrel barked a laugh. “Yeah, like that!”

Lila turned and socked Seyya in the arm, laughing, “Thanks for the demonstration!” Seyya, meanwhile, just turned bright red as the group laughed.

Gerrel grinned and leaned back, nudging Xala with his shoulder. “There, I’m done. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Axilus fluttered his mandibles. “You can’t stop there!”

“Much as I’d love to keep going, kid, if I do, Xala here will finish what the krogan started. Won’t you, Xal?”

Xala scowled. “Call me ‘Xal’ again, and I’ll even do it the same way he did.”

“Nah, you wouldn’t, that’d mean I’d die enjoying myself.”

Xala flushed, and Gerrel cackled, then got up, pushing his chair back to where he’d got it with a foot. “Suppose we should get back to pretending to be responsible adults.”

“What do you mean, _we_ , Han?” Xala asked, nudging him gently.

Gerrel rolled his eyes, going to pick up his helmet. “You kids play nice now,” he said, pulling out his omni-tool band and slipping it back on around his wrist. “Reegar, don’t do anything to that arm, and Madelivio, you be careful with Haasn. Last thing we need’s a Fornax-worthy obituary to tell his stepmother.”


	3. And Now, Back to Your Irregularly-Scheduled Sin

“This is a vibrator.”

Thie looked at the brightly-colored thing in Axilus's hand, then back to him, blinking slowly. “A what.”

Axilus groaned. “A vibrator. It's a thing that goes in your ass and makes you feel good.” He shifted it to his other hand. “Freiya suggested it. Since I have...” He flexed his hand, talons glinting in the light of the clean room. “… yeah.”

Thie put his head in his hands. “You told Freiya we fucked.”

“Well, yes.”

“ _Why?”_

“Because she's my girlfriend and I talk about my sex life with her? Dude, it's not like I went into detail or anything, chill.” Axilus snorted, nasal plates rattling with the force of it. “Anyway, she said you might like it, and I kinda agree. I mean, it was one of the first toys my species invented.”

As he was talking, he knelt down near Thie's lower body like the last time, and Thie instinctively tensed, legs drawing up slightly. “Dude, chill,” Axilus repeated with another snort and a shake of his head, placing a hand on the inside of the leg nearest him. Thie flinched slightly at the roughness of his skin; even where he wasn't plated, Axilus was rough and abrasive, definitely _not_ made to play nice with softer species like himself. “Look, Thie, Freiya said this might work to make the...” He made a motion with his hands, “less painful. You know, uh...” The skin on his neck flushed slightly. “Stretch you out a little before we actually, you know, _fuck.”_

Thie felt his own face heat up, and he worked his jaw for a moment, trying to find a reasonable response. Eventually, he just settled on a choked “Oh,” and flushed again, harder, at the way Axilus laughed, kicking at his cowl. “Don't laugh at me!”

“How can I _not?”_ Axilus asked, mandibles fluttering wildly in amusement. “That was cute!”

“I am not cute!”

“Whatever lets you sleep at night, dude.” With another shake of his head and a cocky flare of his mandibles, Axilus leaned down, grip on the inside of Thie's leg tightening just slightly. “Just hold still, and stop kicking me.”

Just as Thie had begun to prepare himself for the incoming assault of odd sensations, though, Axilus quickly withdrew, jaw snapping shut, and shook his head hard with a snort.

He blinked rapidly. “What? Are you okay?”

Axilus just snorted a few more times, shook his head again, then made a face. “Uh, okay, this is gonna sound weird, but can you take a shower first?” Before Thie got a chance to ask what the hell he was talking about, Axilus continued on and said, “You smell like the kind of alcohol my grandmother told me to never drink 'cause it would make me sick. It's weird and it, uh...” His neck flushed again. “It doesn't taste good.”

Thie blinked again, more slowly this time. “You want me to take a shower because I taste like weird alcohol.”

“Uh, yeah, basically.”

He blinked once more, then rolled his eyes and heaved a heavy, exaggerated sigh. “Fine, whatever, I'll take a shower so you can appease your weird need to lick me before we have sex. Weirdo.”

“It's not weird, it's foreplay!”

“ _What?”_

Axilus clicked his mandibles against the hard plates behind his jaw, moving to stand. “Foreplay, Thie. The shit you do before you fuck. You know, like kissing and handies and oral? Pre-fucking?”

Thie rolled his eyes, hopping to his feet in one fluid motion- the benefits of digitigrade legs. “The more you talk about things like this, the more I'm like ninety-percent certain you turians are just really weird sex-beasts.”

“More like quarians are sex-depraved weirdos.”

“By virtue of having balls-awful immune systems that hate physical exposure to other people, we kind of are.”

Axilus snorted again, following Thie into the bathroom that was (thankfully) attached to the clean room and leaning against the wall across from the shower cubicle. “Sucks to be you guys. Sex is _awesome.”_

Thie just rolled his eyes. “Not when it gets you sick every time. Here, hold this.” He passed the band formerly holding his hair back over to Axilus, running his fingers through it a few times to work out the kinks, then drew back the shower curtain and climbed in.

To his utter lack of surprise, Axilus just spoke over the sound of the shower, his voice carrying through the tiny room. “It doesn't get you sick _every_ time, though! I mean, _you_ were fine after the first time, right?”

“Not really,” he called back, brushing his hair to one side so the water could freely cascade down the tense muscles of his shoulders. It felt strangely more relaxing than it had the last time, which he attributed to the considerable strain biotic usage put on his body. “I mean, aside from the weird sex coma your dick put me in-”

“It wasn't a sex coma! It was an aphrodisiac!”

“ _Sex coma.”_ He grinned at Axilus's frustrated noises and switched his hair to the other side, groaning as something in his shoulder popped. _“Keelah._ Anyway, aside from that, I had a nasty cough and sinus congestion for a week. It was _awful.”_

Axilus scoffed. “That's not being sick.”

“Maybe not to a turian, but for us, it's sick.” Thie shook his head, letting his hair fall back where it liked, then ran a cursory hand over his limbs, paying particular attention to his legs and lower body so Axilus would be less liable to complain that he'd missed some of the decon residue that had settled into his pores. “Trust me, you don't want to see a _really_ sick quarian. It's not a pretty sight.”

After letting the water run on his back and shoulders for another couple minutes, savoring the heat and comfort, Thie switched off the water, shook his head and wrung out his hair somewhat, then drew back the curtain, hand going for one of the towels hanging beside Axilus.

He got approximately halfway there before Axilus tackled him, wrapping one arm around his waist and the other around his shoulders, twirled him around to press him against the wall, and silenced his protest by tapping their foreheads together, mandibles fluttering against his temples.

Thie blinked rapidly at Axilus, who just grinned back and said, “You look really hot with your hair down like that,” before tossing a towel over his head and dancing back with a laugh. Then he bolted for the door.

“Asshole!” Thie yanked the towel off of his head, scowling. “You're not going to give my hairtie back, are you?”

“Nope!”

Thie groaned something about _damn turian teenagers_ and picked the towel back up from where it had fallen, haphazardly running it over his body and quickly drying his hair before sprinting after him. “What the hell is with you and my hair!?”

“It's pretty!” Axilus chirped, ducking back to avoid Thie's swipe at the hairband in his hand. “And it looks a lot better down- why don't you wear it down more?”

“Have you ever tried fitting long hair into a helmet? Or how about keeping it from turning it into a tangled mess? Oh, wait, no, you're a _turian_ , you don't _have_ hair!” Thie scowled and, grudgingly realizing he was a little more than a foot too short to reach, leaped onto Axilus, using his hips as footholds and his cowl for a handhold as he grabbed at the hand Axilus had over his head. “Give me that!”

Axilus yelped and flailed his arms. “Dude, get off!”

“Give me my hairband first!”

“No!”

“Then _no!”_

“Dude-!” Axilus made a weird whining noise and flailed his arms again, then brought his mandibles in tight against his jaw, huffed, and pressed something against Thie's ribs.

Thie had just opened his mouth to ask what the hell it was when whatever it was started buzzing- and holy _shit_ did it tickle- and instead he jolted backwards to escape with a very undignified yelp. “What the fuck was that!?”

“Whoa, hey, careful!” Axilus caught him right before he fell flat on his ass, mandibles fluttering wildly. He fought back a laugh and held up the object with a broad grin. “I did tell you it was a _vibrator_ , right?”

Thie groaned. “Oh, for fuck's sake.” At least it explained the name.

“Yep!” With that, Axilus unceremoniously dropped him, letting him fall backwards (thankfully onto the bed rather than the floor) with a yelp, and settled himself between Thie's legs, pulling the bottle of lube they'd made sure to ask for this time around from a drawer beside the bed.

“Hey-! Wait, no, no no no!” Thie kicked at the hand still holding the vibrator, using his elbows to push himself back away from Axilus. “That is _not_ going in me!”

“Thie, relax! That was the highest setting, I'm not gonna use _that_ on _you!”_ Axilus snorted and pressed the toy against Thie's inner leg, ignoring his instinctive flinch at the touch, and fiddled with something at the base of it until it buzzed to life again, scaring Thie half out of his skin. “See? That's the lowest setting. Not that bad, right?” he asked, making some noise just barely out of Thie's range of hearing that he supposed was probably meant to comfort or reassure him.

Thie just huffed and wiggled his leg until Axilus took the toy away. “No, but it's still weird. I don't want that in me.”

Axilus sighed. “Thie, it's going to help.”

“ _How?”_

“If we put something in your ass before we try to put my dick in, it'll make it hurt less.” His mandibles fluttered. “And with a vibe, it'll feel good for you. I promise.”

Thie studied him for a moment. “You promise?”

“I promise,” Axilus repeated. “Swear on Palaven's spine.”

That was a familiar oath. He'd heard it a lot back on Palaven, with Axilus's family. After another moment of consideration, he sighed and nodded, lying down flat. “Fine. But, just...” He paused, searching for words, then just said, “Be gentle.”

Axilus ran the back of his talon along the inside of Thie's leg, subvocals humming just loudly enough for Thie to know they were. “Aren't I always?”

Thie didn't have an answer, just closing his eyes instead and allowing Axilus to spread his legs. He flinched when he heard the cap of the bottle of lube open. “Warn me before you...” He trailed off as Axilus ran the blunt of his talon along the underside of his shaft, fighting an urge to pull away from the unfamiliar sensation which only intensified when Axilus's hand wrapped around his cock and started lazily stroking at it, sending chills and electricity through his body. Whatever he'd intended to say came out a low moan instead.

He was just considering whether or not to ask Axilus if he'd changed his mind when something cold and wet pressed against his entrance, and instead yelped, sitting bolt upright.

Or, well, he _would_ have if Axilus hadn't gently but firmly pushed him back down again with the hand that had formerly been on his cock. “Relax, Thie,” he thrummed, “it's just the vibe.”

“Oh, _just_ the vibe, I see.” He had to make a conscious effort to lie down and just trust Axilus, trying to relax. It was hard, though, with the lube-soaked toy still pressing against his entrance, even with Axilus's reassurance and the continued gentle stroking along his cock. “Just a- a turian _sex toy,_ nothing weird about _that,_ not at a-”

He broke off with a sudden yelp as the toy suddenly sank several inches into his body and he learned that the _entire thing_ was cold, not just the tip. “I said warn me!”

Axilus laughed. Thie could feel his face burning as the turian let go of the toy and doubled over wheezing. “Oh, spirits, Thie, you should've seen your _face!”_ he wheezed once the initial laughing fit had subsided, giggling manically. “You looked like Tol when that beetle bit his tongue!”

“Well I'm glad you think my discomfort is _funny!”_ Thie growled, kicking out at Axilus.

Well, he tried to.

In reality, he got his leg about halfway there before suddenly realizing that moving so much and so quickly with something inside of him felt _really fucking weird_ and abruptly tried to stop.

Axilus caught his leg with a grin, watching him wheeze as he recovered from the strange sensation. “Are you okay?”

“I- no, I'm not okay!” Thie felt his face heat up _again_ as Axilus burst into laughter. “It's not funny!”

“Except it so _is!”_ Axilus giggled, reaching up to wiggle the vibrator around inside Thie. “Feels weird the first time, doesn't it?”

Chills ran up Thie's spine and he lashed out again despite the weird sensation in his lower half. “Stop doing that!”

Thankfully, Axilus obeyed this time, letting go of both the toy and Thie's leg so he could wrap his arms around his middle and laugh. Thie growled and kicked at him again, grimacing as the toy shifted inside him. _“Asshole,”_ he hissed in the closed dialect, trying to will away the embarrassed blush.

Once the second laughing fit subsided, Axilus sat back up, mandibles still fluttering in a shit-eating grin, and reached for the vibrator again. “Sorry,” he said in a voice that said he totally wasn't. “Ready to keep going?”

Thie scowled at Axilus, then huffed, folding his arms across his chest. “Fine. But be _gentle_ this time.”

“I _was_ being gentle!” Thie grimaced as Axilus eased another inch of the vibrator into him, fighting the urge to squirm. It would just make it feel even weirder, he knew by now from experience. “You just overreacted.”

“I did not!”

“Did too!” After a moment more of bickering pointlessly, Axilus managed to sheathe the toy inside Thie, who squirmed in discomfort for a few seconds before settling down again. “You all right?” he asked after Thie had stilled again. “No pain?”

“No pain,” Thie answered with a brief shake of his head. “But it feels really weird.”

“Well, duh, dude. You have a plastic dick in your ass.”

Thie made a face at Axilus, who snorted. “Now what?”

“Now, I do _this.”_ Axilus angled the vibrator upward, and Thie's hips went with him. He snorted and moved his free hand up to push Thie's back flush against the bed. “Okay, Thie, this really works a lot better if you just hold still.”

“But it felt weird!” Thie complained, because it _had_. He couldn't put words to it, he could just say that whatever it had felt like was _weird_.

“It's supposed to!”

“Then take it out, dammit! I'll take the pain over the weir-”

Axilus, without removing his hand from where it was pinning Thie's hips to the bed, angled the vibrator up again, and Thie's back arched. _“-oh keelah se'lai-”_

It felt… well, again, he didn't really have words for how it felt beyond “really fucking good”.

“ _What the fuck,”_ he hissed once his voice came back, blinking frantically to clear the spots from his vision. “What the _fuck_ was _that!?”_

“That,” Axilus smugly chirped, “is called prostate stimulation.” Then he grinned and angled the vibrator up again, cheerfully watching Thie all but melt into a vaguely quarian-colored puddle of goo. “It gets even better when I turn the vibe on.”

“Don't!” Thie mustered up enough energy to kick Axilus in the side, which just made him laugh again.

“Relax, Thie.” The hand on Thie's hip drifted up to his head, stroking his hair with a surprising gentleness. “I'm not doing this to make you suffer.” Axilus's mandibles quirked out again in that stupid, soft little smile of his. “I promise.”

Thie had to take a moment to collect enough air to speak. “Then stop- _doing_ that-!”

He breathed a sigh of relief when Axilus stopped pressing the vibrator against his- whatever he'd called it, the spot that felt so good it hurt, taking advantage of the break to catch his breath. _“Thank_ you...”

“You okay?” Axilus didn't sound teasing anymore, just worried, leaning in to brush his mandibles against Thie's stomach in what was probably supposed to be either a comforting or apologetic gesture.

Thie just nodded breathlessly, noting somewhere in the back of his head that he'd apparently looped his legs around Axilus's waist sometime while his brain was short-circuiting. His lower body tingled in the absence of the overwhelming sensation, and for half a second, he missed it.

Axilus watched him for a moment, then asked, “Do you think you'll be able to handle it turned on?” When Thie gave him a questioning look, he explained, “It can be pretty intense, especially the first time. I can turn it off if it gets to be too much. Is that okay?”

He waited for Thie to nod again, slowly, then leaned back. “Just, uh...” One mandible quirked up in a half-smile. “Just kick me if you want me to turn it off, okay? But not in the face, please.”

Thie nodded again and Axilus ducked his head, fiddling with the base of the vibrator. “By the way...” Thie cleared his throat. “Sorry if I… you know. Make noise.”

Axilus snorted, flaring his mandibles out, and opened his mouth to reply.

Of course, his reply was immediately drowned out by Thie squeaking loudly and clamping his legs down around Axilus's head, and whatever he'd been saying turned into a surprised squawk.

The two of them simultaneously shouted, “Don't _do_ that!” and “What the _fuck_ , Thie!?” and then promptly stared at each other.

“That tickled!” Thie complained, moving his legs away from Axilus's head, who proceeded to shake himself out like an insulted asari.

“Yeah? Well, that _hurt!”_ Axilus mimicked Thie's tone, rubbing at his mandibles. “Seriously, dude, it hurt.”

Thie huffed, then sighed and sat up. “Oh, come here, you big baby.”

Axilus hesitantly leaned forward, and Thie grabbed the edge of his cowl, pulled him down, and planted a kiss on each mandible, then leaned back, making a face. “Your plates are rough. Remind me to not do that ever again.”

Axilus just stared at him.

Thie squirmed. “What?”

“What was that?”

“I- you said it hurt, so I-” Thie flushed again. “Look, I don't know, okay!? Stop staring at me!”

Axilus blinked slowly at him, then shook his head and leaned back down again. “Whatever, dude. Species with lips are weird.”

“It's not weird, it's a kiss!”

“Still weird.”

Thie snorted and rolled his eyes. _“Turians_. It's a _kiss,_ it's nooaa _aaaaughhh-”_

He trailed off into a moan as the vibrator clicked on, and Axilus grinned, watching Thie squirm and gasp and make odd noises that sounded pleased and surprised all at the same time, gently wiggling the vibrator inside him. “Wow, only the lowest setting on the smaller vibe and you're already a mess.” He flared his mandibles in a broad grin. “Freiya'd _love_ fucking _you.”_

Thie made an incomprehensible moaning noise in response that rose sharply in pitch when Axilus angled the toy upwards, his entire body twitching spastically.

Axilus let Thie squirm for a few more minutes, then reached down and experimentally switched the intensity up a level.

The response was immediate. Thie's back arched up again and his legs tightened around Axilus's waist, toes curling. He'd unfolded his arms and now clutched at the bed, hands clenching and unclenching in irregular rhythms.

The most jarring thing, though, was the fact that Thie had begun making a noise which felt, to Axilus, like happy subvocals. Which was impossible, because quarians couldn't _do_ that.

Could they?

He let it go on for a minute or two longer, then switched the vibrator off, leaning down to nuzzle Thie's cheek as he panted for breath, still twitching and spasming randomly. Once he'd seemed to have calmed down, Axilus nuzzled a mandible against Thie's temple and asked, “So, what was that?”

Thie took a moment to process the question, then frowned, still trying to catch his breath. “What was what?”

“You made a subvocal noise. Here.” He tapped Thie's chest, mindful not to cut him open by accident. “What was it?”

“I… what?”

Axilus snorted and shook his head. “Forget it. You okay?”

Thie inhaled slowly, then nodded. “… yeah. Yeah, I'm...” He fell silent for a moment, then cracked a small smile. “It felt good.”

Axilus grinned, lightly punching his shoulder. “Told you.” Then he sat back again, experimentally moving the vibrator inside Thie. Thie grimaced at the sensation. “Huh… so, want to try the bigger one?”

“There's a bigger one?” Thie's voice cracked, making them both flinch, and then Axilus laughed.

“Yeah, Freiya said she was gonna send a couple different sizes so you could work your way up to me-size.” Axilus let go of the toy and rummaged around beside the bed for a moment. “She actually just sent two, but they're pretty different.”

“How different are we talking, here?”

“This different.” Thie closed his mouth and raised an eyebrow at the toy now in Axilus's hand. It was a near-anatomically correct replica of a turian penis, except with a flared base lined with some pretty obvious electrical fuckery. He estimated it was probably twice as big as the one currently in his ass width-wise, but only a couple inches more length-wise, and it still had _nothing_ on Axilus's cock.

Still, the one currently in his ass felt large enough. Putting something twice the size in? Ehh… “Uh, I don't… think...”

“Dude, you took, like, half my dick last time just fine.” Axilus shook his head. “You can't get cold over a plastic one that's smaller than I am, that's just sad.”

“I'm not getting cold over anything!” By now, Thie was used to blushing almost constantly, which was honestly pretty sad. “I-I'm just… oh, come on, you can't blame me for being nervous!”

Axilus just shrugged and pulled the smaller vibrator out of Thie in one smooth motion, dousing the other in lube. “Look, you'll be fine, okay? I promise.”

“How are you so sure?”

“'cause I fucked you last time just fine and we didn't even prep? Relax, Thie, seriously.” Axilus quirked his mandibles up in a grin. “Have some faith in yourself.”

Thie made a vaguely displeased noise, closing his eyes as Axilus placed the larger toy at his entrance. “Okay, but just- take it slow, okay?”

“I will, don't worry.”

Axilus started to press the toy in, then paused and pulled it away, and Thie cracked open an eye in confusion. “Uh, what are you doing?”

“Uh.” Axilus had his hand in his crotch, teasing his plates open, and had halted with a caught-with-the-cookie-jar look on his face that vaguely reminded Thie of Kel when he-

No.

No, no no.

Bad, don't think about- _don't._

“Thie? Are you okay?”

Axilus looked worried, and Thie shook his head, hard. “I'm- I'm fine. What the hell are you _doing,_ though?”

The turian's neck turned blue. “Uh, well, I...” He lowered his head. “I thought if I put some of my lubricant on the vibe, the, uh, aphrodisiac might help you relax some. So you're, uh, not so tense when we go to fuck. If… if that's okay?”

Thie blinked slowly. “Does that even _work?”_

“Well, I dunno, but it's worth a try, right?”

“I… sure? I mean, only if you're sure it won't be enough to turn me into a drooling mess this time around.”

“Well, no, _this_ wouldn't be enough. It'd just help you relax, maybe get into it a little more. That kinda stuff.”

Thie shook his head. “Fine, whatever. If it makes you feel better, go on and do it, I guess.”

Axilus grinned that dopey grin of his again and collected a handful of lubricant from his crotch, sloppily applying it to the vibrator. “Okay, lie down. It's easier to get in if you're lying down.”

“Thanks for saying it like that,” Thie groused, lying flat on his back and spreading his legs again. “You make it sound so clinical.”

“That's what I'm good at,” Axilus chirped. Then he replaced the toy at Thie's entrance and started slowly pushing it in.

To his credit, Axilus _was_ very gentle about it. The first half of the vibrator was fine, what with it being modeled after a turian dick and with turian dicks being tapered and such, and went in with an ease that surprised Thie. But by the later half, the stretch got to be mildly uncomfortable, and he found himself biting his lip as the vibe eased in, centimeter by centimeter, until the base was pressed firmly against his skin, the entire toy sheathed inside him.

Honestly, if he hadn't known he'd had Axilus's dick inside him, he would have been amazed that it fit, for how overwhelmingly _big_ it felt inside him.

After he caught his breath again, he glanced up at Axilus, who just grinned and said, “Your lip is bleeding. Good job, dumbass.”

“Fuck off, Madelivio.”

“Too late, already fucking _you.”_

Thie groaned and propped himself up on his elbows, grimacing. _“Ancestors,_ that feels so weird. And _don't_ remind me that I have a fake dick in me, Axilus. Believe me, I _know.”_

“Aw.” Axilus's mandibles drooped momentarily, and then he grinned again. He was doing an awful lot of that today, Thie mentally noted. “So, want me to turn it on?”

“Please don't.”

“Oh, fine.” Instead, he grasped the base of the vibe and eased it out a few inches, watching Thie's face flicker through a myriad of responses, then gently thrust it back in and did it again, slowly building up speed and force until he was effectively fucking Thie with the toy.

Then, once Thie looked sufficiently dozy with pleasure (which didn't take long, to his neverending amusement), he eased the toy back in, let go, and leaned up to flutter his mandibles against Thie's temples. “Pain gone yet?”

Thie breathlessly nodded, taking a moment or two to collect himself enough to respond, “How…?”

Axilus just grinned. “Practice with Freiya. You pick up a few things.”

Then, without waiting for Thie to answer, he reached down and clicked the vibrator on, then continued languidly fucking him with the toy.

Thie's response was much more muted this time. Rather than completely falling apart like he did last time, his head tilted back, eyes closing and mouth open in a comfortable “o” as the sensations washed over him. To Axilus's great relief, he finally seemed to relax.

He kept it going for a few minutes, savoring the rare peaceful look on Thie's face and his faint sounds of satisfaction, then finally switched the toy off and removed it. Thie blinked down at him, frowning faintly. “Why'd you stop?”

Axilus glanced down at his crotch, then back up at Thie as his answer.

Thie paled somewhat. “Oh, right.”

“C'mere.” Axilus took Thie's hand and pulled him up, maneuvering him into his lap just like last time. Thie's legs wrapped loosely around his waist, arms draped around his neck, and briefly, Axilus touched their foreheads together for a moment, closing his eyes.

Then he drew back and carefully positioned Thie over his cock, and Thie took a long, slow, deep breath. “Here goes nothing, huh?” And then he slowly eased down.

Surprisingly, the head went in with ease, and Thie, who had been expecting immediate resistance, found himself a couple inches down already before it actually required effort to move further. He and Axilus both glanced down in surprise. “That was… easy,” Thie cautiously noted, slowly shifting his hips.

Axilus inhaled sharply. “Could you not do that?” he asked, voice sounding strained. “It's hard enough to resist just fucking your brains out without you doing that.”

“Oh, uh, sorry.” He brushed his cheek against Axilus's zygomatic plate in apology and eased down another couple centimeters, grimacing somewhat when the pain started in. It was nothing like the first time, just a bit more than mildly uncomfortable, but it was still enough to make him pause.

Axilus's hands tightened around his ribs. “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine, I'm fine, I just...” He inhaled slowly. “I need a second.” After a pause, he added, “It's better than last time.”

Axilus snorted, the air current down his back sending chills up his spine. “Well, duh, we actually prepped you this time. Plus we got lube.”

“True.” He took a slow breath, then nodded, more to himself than to Axilus, and started moving down again.

They continued in that vein again, stopping and starting and occasionally Thie would lift himself up a half-inch and then drop down a full inch because that was easier and felt better, and sometimes Axilus helped by gently thrusting his hips up as Thie was moving down, for another ten minutes or so, and then Thie went to drop down again and found himself sitting fully in Axilus's lap.

They both looked down in surprise, and Axilus blurted, “Wait, what?”

Thie, on the other hand, just mumbled, “Holy _shit._ You- how do you- how did it _fit_ _?”_

It felt… weird, to say the least. Not uncomfortable, but sure as hell not _comfortable_ , either. Just… _weird_. Tight and fluttery, and it sort of felt like the head of Axilus's dick was sitting somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach instead of his ass. And on top of that, he could _definitely_ feel that Axilus should've probably not been able to get all the way into him in the way his lower body was seizing internally, sending short bursts of not-quite-pain shooting up into his torso and down into his legs as his body tried very, very hard to eject the too-large object currently buried in his guts.

He shifted his hips and grimaced; yes, as hard as it was to believe, Axilus was definitely hilt-deep inside him. He could feel it. Every single inch.

Keelah.

“Yeah, exactly what I'm asking,” Axilus was saying, oblivious to Thie's internal monologue as his mandibles flared in and out in surprise. He eased a hand into the space between Thie's skin and his own groin, incredulously feeling at where they were joined. “Holy shit, I'm in. I'm really- but- but how the _fuck?_ You're so _tiny!_ _”_

“I don't… I don't know?” Thie started prodding at his belly, blinking rapidly. “Where did it all go- oh. _Oh_. Oh, keelah. Ax, I can feel you in me.”

Axilus groaned and pulled his hand back out to grab Thie's wrist. “Yeah, and I can feel you poking me, so please stop.”

“No, Ax, I mean I can literally feel your dick.” He grabbed Axilus's hand and placed it over his lower belly, pressing the unplated part in somewhat. “Do you feel that?”

“Oh.” Axilus blinked. “Holy shit.”

Thie paled considerably. “I can literally- okay, okay, that's _weird,_ that's _really weird._ This isn't normal.”

“No, but it's kinda hot.” Thie opened his mouth to say something- probably _'dude, what the fuck'_ \- and Axilus rolled his hips, instead sending Thie face-first into his cowl with a moan.

Axilus blinked. “Uh, Thie?”

“ _Asshole,”_ Thie hissed once he regained his senses somewhat, smacking a fist into Axilus's unplated neck. “First off, don't do that, I was talking! And second, it's _not hot!_ Not even a _little_ bit! I- you are literally _so big-”_

“Yeah, and that's what makes it so hot!”

Thie groaned and shook his head, leaning back to glare at Axilus. “You have some weird-ass kinks, man.” Then he paused. “Uh, what's that look for?”

Axilus mutely motioned towards Thie's lower belly, and Thie looked down only to immediately turn green, look back up, and say, “Nope.”

“Dude, I can _see my-”_

“Stop.”

“But-”

“Axilus, please don't talk about the fact that the head of your dick is visible inside me when I lean back.” Saying it out loud made him feel dizzy and more than a little nauseous. “Please.”

Well. When he'd said it had felt like Axilus's dick was all the way up in his stomach, he didn't think he was _right._ Granted, the… _bulge_ was only about even with his bellybutton rather than his actual stomach, but it was still…

Thie gave an involuntary full-body shudder. _Ugh_.

“Uh, okay.” Axilus fell silent for a moment, then shifted his grip on Thie's sides and slowly lifted him up off his cock until just the head remained inside him. “You ready?”

Thie bit back a groan at the unfamiliar void sensation, stomach turning, and hesitantly nodded. “As I'll ever be.”

Axilus leaned forward and brushed a mandible across Thie's temple, then let go of him.

Thie made a very undignified noise and doubled over, burying his face in the relatively soft flesh of Axilus's neck to stifle a moan that was really more of a yell than anything as his legs gave out halfway down and he dropped the rest of the way much faster than he'd wanted to.

To be completely honest, he'd been expecting pain, like the last time. After all, getting Axilus's dick in him the first time had hurt like hell, even if this time hadn't, so it would have made sense for taking the whole thing in one motion to have hurt again. But instead, he'd gotten a mind-numbing burst of _good_ that lit up spots in his vision and pushed the air out of his lungs, forcing him to pant to get a breath back. Once he'd caught his breath somewhat, Thie raised his head and whispered, _“_ _Keelah,_ Ax...”

He didn't get to say much else. Axilus had closed his eyes, mandibles fluttering and hands closing tight around Thie's sides again to keep him from moving on his own. Beneath him, he slowly rolled his hips back and forth, each small motion sending more electricity through Thie's body and stars before his eyes. After another fruitless attempt to speak, Thie gave up and just rested his head in Axilus's cowl, biting back noises.

It was a few minutes before Axilus managed to speak again, and all he said was, _“Spirits,_ I needed this,” in a low whisper, subvocals rumbling through his cowl.

Thie tried to answer and only barely managed a soft little moan in response.

It was hard to think straight. Axilus was _so big,_ and he felt even bigger now, stretching him so wide inside it almost hurt and pressing so hard against every little sensitive spot inside of him that the tiny little rocking motions Axilus was making with his hips were enough to make him dizzy, and honestly, Thie didn't know how he wasn't bleeding already, or even if he _was_ and just couldn't feel it.

“ _There is a turian inside me,”_ Thie abruptly realized, the thoughts surprisingly clear through the haze. _“I have a turian cock inside me, and I actually_ like _it.”_

Well, that was definitely gay. He couldn't deny it. Being fucked by a crested turian with a cock and actively enjoying the experience was definitely, _definitely_ gay.

But maybe, he distantly hoped, he could still be… what was the word Axilus and Tollak had used, so long ago? Bi? Maybe he could still be bi.

Probably not, but he could hope.

Dimly, he realized that Axilus was talking again and tried to focus back in. It was harder than he'd anticipated, with the way his head was swimming, which could probably mostly be attributed to the weird aphrodisiac quality of Axilus's self-lubrication.

“Are you okay?” he finally heard Axilus clearly say, concerned subvocals trilling just on the edge of hearing. “Thie? Thie, are you alright?”

Thie groaned and lifted his head. “Yeah, I...” He swallowed another groan and nodded, slowly shifting his hips back and forth so Axilus's cock was rubbing against that sensitive part of him again. _Ancestors,_ it felt so good. “Ohh, _keelah…_ We should- we should _definitely_ do that again.”

Axilus laughed after a moment, leaning down just slightly so he could brush a mandible along Thie's cheek. “You had me worried for a second there. No pain?”

Thie just barely managed to shake his head. “No pain.”

“Good.” Then Axilus lifted him up and dropped him down again, this time keeping his hands tightly wrapped around Thie's sides to control how quickly he fell when it became apparent that Thie's legs had all but literally turned to jelly on him again. Thie was more than happy to just let him do as he pleased, riding the waves of pleasure as they came and trying in vain to keep his noises to a minimum.

It only lasted a minute or so, though, and then Axilus seated Thie fully on his cock again and coughed to get his attention, neck flushed blue.

Thie had to take a moment to collect himself, fighting to find words again through the familiar rosy haze in his head. “What- what's wrong?” he finally managed to say after a couple false starts. “Why'd you… why'd you stop?”

Axilus coughed again and ducked his head. “It's really awkward seeing, uh...” He poked a finger into Thie's lower belly, where the faintest outline of his cock could just barely be seen. “… that, every time. Is it okay if I…?”

Thie stared for a moment as Axilus gestured with his hands. “… turn me over?”

“Yeah, that. Is that okay?”

“Uh… sure..?” Weird how Axilus was squeamish about it _now,_ after calling it hot before, but whatever.

“Okay, great.”

Thie groaned as Axilus lifted him off of him and turned him over, gently placing him on his hands and knees on the bed, then took his place above him and eased his cock back in- surprisingly easily, too, in comparison to the first two times. One of Axilus's arms wound around his hips, pulling him back and pushing himself in as deep as he physically could, and the other went around his chest to hold him up. He could feel Axilus's cowl ghosting against his shoulderblades and his breath on the back of his neck, sending chills down his spine.

Axilus groaned softly and ground their hips together, drawing a choked mewl from Thie in response. “Less chance of chafing this way, too,” he hummed. “All good?”

Thie managed a short, jerky nod, too lost in the sensations to properly reply. Axilus somehow felt even _bigger_ from this angle, each motion of his hips sending jolts of _good_ shooting through his body and coiling into his groin. If it weren't for Axilus's arm holding him up, his arms would have given out.

“Good.” Axilus ghosted his mouth plates along the side of Thie's head, chuckling at the goosebumps that raised in response, then straightened up and eased out. Thie tried not to groan at the loss of the satisfactory _full_ feeling. “Might wanna hang on to something.”

He was just about to ask what in the world he was supposed to hang on to when Axilus, without warning, snapped his hips back against Thie's and filled his eyes with stars.

It was difficult to think straight after that, wave after wave of pure _good_ rushing through his body as Axilus almost literally pounded into him, each thrust filling him full of the not-quite-pain until he almost felt like throwing up from it but not quite, the pressure of it growing until it hurt. Distantly, he knew he was making quite a bit of noise, his throat growing hoarse and achy but he couldn't stop making noise and honestly, he didn't _want_ to. The coil winding in his groin tightened and tightened until it hurt enough that he nearly wanted to cry, and then Axilus gave one more thrust, burying himself deep inside Thie, and groaned, reaching a hand beneath him, and the coil broke and Thie _screamed_.

By the time he came back to himself, Axilus had wrapped both arms around his chest, gently rocking their hips and humming into the hollow of his neck. There was something wet on his hand and something warm in his guts and somehow, for the first time in months, all the tension in his body was gone.

He heaved a sigh, head dipping, and Axilus chuckled. “Feel better?” he asked, gently tracing a talon tip along his side, light enough that it wouldn't make him bleed but hard enough for it to sting.

It was a good sting, though. Thie took a long, slow, deep breath, willing away the haze in his mind. “Yeah,” he finally answered after a long moment, voice quivering and hoarse. “Yeah, I do.”

“Told you it's great stress relief.” Axilus grinned, one of his mandibles brushing against Thie's neck and sending chills rippling through him again. The damn turian knew he was ticklish and did that on purpose. Dammit.

Thie huffed and elbowed him. Axilus just laughed.

Then the laugh died as he sat up and went to pull out, and instead pulled Thie with him the couple inches he'd moved before freezing and muttering, “Oh no.”

Thie hissed, the sudden spike of pain from being dragged backwards by by something inside him cutting through the fog in his head like plasma bolts through a kinetic barrier. “What the fuck are you doing?” he growled, reaching a trembling hand back to swat at him. “Don't I deserve a- a break?”

“Well, yeah.” Axilus tugged again, wincing so hard he could feel it in his lower body when Thie yelped in pain. “Uh, see… how do I put this… turians have this… this… thing? It's an evolutionary throwback, uh… where when we're… like, _really_ turned on, we kinda… do this…” He whined. “It's a knot, okay?”

Thie blinked, twisting to stare at him. “A what?”

Axilus groaned. “It's a thing, okay? A thing on the base of the dick that's supposed to…” His neck flushed bright blue. “… supposed to lock us into a female or something, so we… uh… can…” He ducked his head, whispering the last bit.

 _Turians._ Thie rolled his eyes and swatted at Axilus, growling, “Say again, for those of us without turian hearing?” and Axilus turned even bluer, if that was even possible.

He whined, then answered, sounding horribly embarrassed, “It locks us in so we can breed a female, okay? I'm stuck!”

Thie blinked.

Axilus blinked.

Thie blinked again. “So, let me get this straight,” he said, slowly. “Your dick is stuck in my ass.” Axilus awkwardly nodded. “Because of an evolutionary breeding thing.” Axilus nodded again. Thie sighed. “For how long?”

Axilus squirmed, then answered, “Anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour,” and Thie choked.

“An _hour!?”_

“Maybe! It depends!”

“On _what!?”_

“On… I don't know, I didn't pay attention in sex ed!”

“How did this even happen!? I'm not a turian female!”

Axilus turned blue again. “It's not supposed to! But I...” He looked away, mandibles fluttering in embarrassment. “I haven't been taking the hormonal suppressants since I'm not fucking turians, so… that… might be why...”

Thie scowled and kicked him in the leg. “You _asshole.”_

“Hey, fuck off, man! Don't do that while I'm stuck in yours!”

“ _Please. Don't. Say that.”_

“What, that I'm stuck in your ass?”

“Yes, exactly!”

“ _I'm stuck in your ass.”_

Axilus yelped as Thie kicked him again and squawked, “Will you cut that out!?”

“No!”

Axilus whined, then said, “I… I guess I can call Freiya? Maybe… I dunno...”

Thie made some sort of noise deep in his chest. “Why would you call _your girlfriend_ while you're fucking _me?”_

“'Cause I, uh… I may or may not have, um...” Axilus swallowed. “Imayormaynothaveknottedherbeforeonceonaccident.”

Thie blinked rapidly. “Come again? Slower this time, I'm not a salarian and my translator is shit.”

Axilus whined again. “We were in basic and I wasn't expecting to get laid that night so I hadn't been taking the suppressants recently and I got stuck in Freiya on accident and we were really, _really_ lucky she'd remembered hers 'cause if we'd both forgotten either Freiya would've had to get an abortion or we'd be _parents_ at _fifteen!”_

Thie blinked slowly, processing this. “So you're telling me… You've only ever gotten stuck in Freiya and _me.”_

“Yeah, basically.”

Thie grimaced. “Wow. I'm honored, really.”

“Shut up, dude, how do you think I feel!? You usually only hear about this happening from, like, _mated_ couples, and even then there has to be a _huge_ hormone surge, and-”

“I don't care, just shut up and get out of me already!”

Axilus whined, then let go of Thie's sides and pulled up his omni-tool. There was some beeping, then Axilus said something in the closed dialect that Thie assumed was some sort of passcode.

Then he heard an all-too-familiar voice hum, “Axi, babe, you know I'm always down, but I think you're a little busy at the moment, don't you?”

Axilus turned bright blue and whined. “Freiya!”

“Hey, I'm just saying, you're… Hey, wait, how deep _are_ you?”

Axilus sucked in a breath. “Uh… all the way.”

There was a pause. “You're shitting me,” Freiya finally said.

“No, seriously, look!”

Thie frowned and twisted around, trying to see what Axilus was up to, then heard a very turian whistle. “Ax, if this weren't over comm, I'd punch you. You didn't say he was pretty.”

“You're not helping, Freiya.”

“Never do. So did you call to rub it in my face that a quarian's getting you all to himself while I have to settle for dudes I just met with dicks smaller than yours, or is there an actual reason for this?”

Axilus whimpered. “Well, I, uh...” He swallowed. “Remember that one time, in basic, when..?”

“Oh, _apricitas_ , there were a _lot_ of times in basic, you'll have to be more specific than that.”

“Um, it was, uh, we'd just finished disassembly training, and-”

For ancestors' sake. “He's stuck,” Thie bluntly stated.

Freiya went silent, then let out a cackle. “You're shitting me!” she shrieked. “For serious? You're shitting me!”

Axilus sputtered, and Thie said, “No. Wish I was, but no.”

Freiya snickered. “Shit, that's hot. I mean, it was hotter when he did it to _me,_ 'cause I was the one actually getting it, but damn, still nice to hear about it.”

“That makes one of us.”

Freiya laughed. “I like this one, Ax, keep him. So like, were you just calling to say so, or..?”

Axilus whined again. “No, we just- I don't know what to _do!”_

Freiya grunted. “That's nothing new, to be honest, babe. You want my advice, best get comfy, 'cause you're gonna be stuck there for a while.” She paused, then added, “That means get him off his knees, Ax. I know from experience being on your hands and knees with _anybody,_ but especially _you,_ over you gets _really_ uncomfortable, _really_ fast.”

Axilus made an apologetic noise. “How many times do I have to apologize for that?”

“Once a week for the rest of your life, or until you fuck my brains out effectively enough to make me forget.”

Axilus made a curious sound, and Thie swore he could hear Freiya roll her eyes in how she said, “Not for a while, babe. Hurry up and get Haasn off his knees already.”

Axilus heaved a sigh, then Thie let out a yelp as he was suddenly grabbed around the waist again. Axilus was more than careful as he moved Thie around until he was sitting in his lap again, albeit now facing the opposite direction since Axilus couldn't turn him without tugging, but that didn't stop Thie from making a myriad of undignified noises. Freiya snickered and chirped, “Kinky.”

Once Thie was settled again, he grumbled, “Freiya, _why?”_

“I enjoy your suffering. Now Ax, _don't move.”_

Axilus whined, and she warned, “Don't give me that. The more you move, the more you're gonna want to start fucking again, and then you'll be stuck even _longer_. Put on a vid, play video games, whatever, just find some way to pass the time _other_ than fucking.”

Axilus huffed. “You have no faith in me.”

“We were stuck for fifty minutes, Ax. Of course I don't.”

Axilus gave an indignant squawk, and Freiya snorted. “Haasn, if this idiot gets to fucking you again, you let me know, yeah? Next time I see him, I'll use his talons as gizzard stones.”

“I don't even know what those are.” He paused, then added, “I don't _want_ to know, either.”

“You'll find out eventually. You're living with a turian.”

“Don't remind me.”

Freiya snickered, then hummed. “I gotta go. Oh, Ax, you'll _never_ guess who I'm working with. He's hot, though. And his sister's not too bad-looking, either.”

Axilus whined. “What, you're not gonna tell me?”

“Nah, I'm gonna let you debate until the next time I can chat. See if you guess right. Bye, babe, love you. Play nice with Haasn, you might break his pelvis if you pull out too early!”

Thie yelped. “Wait, _what?”_

But Freiya had already hung up, and Axilus whimpered. “Sorry about her… So, like, you wanna watch a vid or something?”

“I'm more interested in the thing where you could _break my pelvis.”_

Axilus, unsurprisingly, whined. “Well… I almost hurt Freiya trying to pull out the last time, and you're… a lot… smaller...”

Thie groaned. “Great. Just fucking _great.”_

Axilus made a weird noise he couldn't quite place and brought his arms around in front of Thie, fiddling with his omni-tool until a streaming app popped up. “Look, I'll turn on a vid, okay? Until I can pull out without, you know, hurting you.” Thie grumbled in assent and Axilus asked, “Any preferences?”

Thie made a face. “Anything but _Fleet and Flotilla_.”

Axilus grunted. “I feel you there, dude. Let's see...” He scrolled through a few pages of vids. “What about _314?_ Spirits, I remember when this one came out.” Thie rolled his eyes at the sappy tone in his voice as he continued, “It's a comedy retelling of the Relay 314 incident, with the humans? It's really funny. They had to cast a bunch of asari, some volus, and an vorcha as the humans 'cause no humans actually wanted to participate. Oh, and this random hanar. He didn't even have a part, he just kinda showed up in every shot and made the crew laugh. I won this bet once with Tol 'cause Tol bet me he showed up in less shots than the guy playing Desolas, but he beat him out by, like, twelve.” He paused, then added, “Desolas was pissed. He got beat out by a hanar. Mom thought it was hysterical.”

Thie cracked a smile. “Sounds like an adventure and a half. Why the hell not?” He held up a hand. “On the condition that you point out every single appearance of the hanar so I can tally them up and laugh.”

“Fair enough.” Axilus tapped the vid and waited for it to load. “Good thing you guys have great extranet signals here, huh?”

“Well, yeah, we kinda have to. A whole, like, 90% of our shit is extranet-based.”

Axilus whistled. “Hate to see what happens when you fly into a deadzone.”

“Chaos and pandemonium,” Thie replied in a deadpan. Then he paused for dramatic effect and added, “And widespread revolts from the _Galaxy of Fantasy_ cults.”

“Know that from experience, huh?”

“Fuck off.”

“Can't, still stuck in your ass.”

Axilus grinned at Thie's groan and settled back, playing with the volume setting on his omni-tool. Thie bit back a groan at the odd sensation of the _definitely-_ too-large knot shifting inside him as Axilus leaned back, however minutely, and slumped back against Axilus's cowl. _Ancestors,_ it felt nice. If it weren't for the fact that he was exhausted and honestly more than a little bit queasy from having his brains fucked out by a turian, he might have subtly tried to encourage Axilus to fuck him again, but he didn't want to be stuck with his dick inside him for any longer than he had to be right now.

As the movie started up, Axilus flared his mandibles out in a grin and pointed to one of the actresses on the title menu. “Oh! She's the one they hired to play Lieutenant Abrudas! She's so hot, dude, just you wait 'til you hear her voice.” He trilled some subvocal noise in his cowl that sent shivers through Thie's body. “Hot damn, dude. Uncle Solas said she, like, screamed when she found out who was playing her.”

“Uh, screamed?”

“They were IMing and she sent back ten whole lines of A's and twelve of H's. In varying degrees of capitalization and rich-text emphasis. Then she called him and just screamed for ten minutes.” He chuckled. “Took him a whole hour to get her to tell him why she was screaming at him. It was so funny, he was so freaked out.”

Then he pointed at the title screen again and said, “And that's the guy who's playing Desolas in this. He's, like, _amazing_ at imitating his voice, it's so great. I got chills, dude. Mom was dying in the sexual kind of way 'cause she loved his voice so much.” He paused, then said, in a much deeper, kind of crackly, forced voice, _“Sephira.”_ Then, in his normal voice, added, “Like that. Dad was pissed, but Solas thought it was _great._ Like, comedy-worthy shit.”

Then he finally started the movie and they settled back to watch, Axilus pausing every so often to point out actors or actresses or the random volus who was supposed to be some asshole named Jack or something on the human side and the vorcha named Willis and the random elcor named Eva, talking about all the changes they made and why they made more sense than what the humans said happened (“Because humans are over-dramatic windbags who think they're cool,” Axilus happily explained), and so on and so forth.

Around the halfway point, Axilus paused the movie and wrapped his arms around Thie's midsection, moving to stand. Thie yelped and clung to him, awkwardly bending his legs to wrap around Axilus's so gravity would force Axilus' dick a little less further into his body than it was currently trying to. “What are you doing?” he hissed, voice cracking.

Axilus shifted his grip on him and shrugged, walking towards the bathroom. “I can pull out now, but, uh...” He cleared his throat. “It'll be kind of messy, so I figure it might be better to do it in the shower, so we can clean up easier.”

“I- oh, uh...” Well, that made sense. Granted, fluid was already seeping past Axilus' dick and dripping down the inside of his leg, but it was the thought that counted. Plus, if the weird pressure in his lower body was any indication, there was going to be a _lot_ more than the little bit that was trickling down his leg when Axilus pulled out. “Okay then, makes sense.”

“Yep.” Axilus punched the holo-lock for the door and headed into the shower cubicle, gingerly letting Thie down on his feet, though he kept his hands around his ribs just in case his legs decided to give out again. “I'm gonna pull out now, okay? It might hurt.”

Thie braced himself against the wall. “As long as it doesn't involve breaking my pelvis, I'll be fine.”

Axilus snorted. “Here's hoping.” Then he moved one hand down to hold Thie's hips steady and slowly, slowly started pulling out.

It hurt. It really did. The swelling around the base of his dick hadn't gone completely down, just enough that Axilus could ease the knot past Thie's pelvis without breaking it, which meant that Thie's body was suddenly trying to expel something that had gone in much, _much_ smaller, and it _hurt like a bitch._ By the time it came out, which it did all at once with a sickeningly wet _pop,_ Thie was crying, harshly biting his lip to keep the pained noises more or less to himself.

Axilus breathed a sigh of relief, leaning down to nuzzle Thie as a mess of fluids trickled down the insides of Thie's legs and pooled on the tiled floor beneath them. “You okay?”

Thie took a moment to catch his breath, reaching up to scrub at the half-dried tracks of tears running down his cheeks, and nodded. “More or less. That _hurt...”_

“Sorry.” Axilus nuzzled him again, then turned the shower on, cranking the heat all the way up. Thie hissed at the contact. “I'll take the suppressants again, I promise. Never again.”

“Never again,” Thie agreed, and then heaved a sigh and slumped back against Axilus's cowl, tilting his head up to look at Axilus. “You owe me.”

Axilus laughed, and for the first time in months, Thie did too.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["take me to church" blares loudly in the foreground]
> 
> 18 pages of porn... almost 10,000 words of it... why.


End file.
